


Turn Your Eyes

by dragonofdispair



Series: Hymns of the Guiding Hand [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Mythology/Religion, Gen, Lawyers, Religion, Trial by Combat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 23:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5224439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request from 12drakon — “Would you please briefly tell me how Silverblast came to his two positions?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [12drakon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/12drakon/gifts).



> This was only supposed to be a paragraph!

_And the things of earth will grow strangely dim_

_In the light of His glory and grace_

          — Helen Lemmel,  _“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”_

_._

_._

_._

Priest-Judge Silverblast is a highly respected judge in the Praxan courts whose devotion to the god of Judgement is as unbroken as the silver of his plating, and whose determination to pursue justice in his rulings is as strong as the sword he carries.

But it was not always so.

During the first vorn of Sentinel’s Primacy, Silverblast was sparked into the noble caste, lawyer subcaste. His frame was a standard Praxan data caste frame and when he was sparked his colors were a cheerful blue and turquoise and white accents. He was given the name _Gladius_ by Vector Sigma and chose the unambitious name Pen. Pen actually rather liked his job, especially researching past verdicts to give his arguments weight, arguing different points of view, and really digging into the intricacies of Cybertronian law. He was _very_ good at his job. Too good. He didn’t know it, but he had the Primus affiliated alpha ability of seeing the truth in the written word, which is what ultimately got him in trouble. 

During one case to defend a minor, political subcaste, noble his research led him to a set of old but falsified documents that would have exonerated his client. He couldn’t use them, and instead reported the false documents to the archivists for removal. In the absence of those documents, Pen’s client was found guilty and sentenced to prison. This enraged the noble’s political allies and they leveled charges against Pen, claiming that he had failed in his caste-responsibility to defend his client to the best of his ability and that since he had no archivist programming it was not his place to disregard previously verified documents. He’d overstepped the bounds of his caste and disregarded his duties to his own in the process.

Pen, not knowing that his intuition regarding the documents came from an alpha ability, found himself hard pressed to defend himself against the charges. He did his best, but ultimately failed and in order to keep his reputation and professional standing (without which he could not work as a lawyer which could kill him eventually) he was forced to call upon that final clause in Cybertronian law: Trial by Combat.

A priest was chosen as his opponent and they chose weapons while the temple was cleared of all but the most necessary of bystanders.

Watching his opponent choose her weapon, Pen was very frightened. Priests of Mortilus trained in combat and he had touched a weapon before in his life and now he would be fighting a representation of the god of judgement. Valkyrie was only a novice herself, in deference to Pen’s lack of combat skill, but she was calm and assured as she chose a long staff with energon blade — a spear — while Pen hovered with indecision.

Many of the weapons were old. He thought about using a gun, but while going over his case files for cases involving military mechs he’d come across many references to newly sparked military mechs accidentally shooting themselves and other heinous accidents. And those were about mechs who were programmed to handle weapons! No, he wouldn’t be choosing a gun for his trial. Others in this situation he’d read about had chosen randomly, trusting Mortilus to decide well for them, but instead he went through examining each weapon as his plating trembled in fear. The nobles who’d accused him and the lawyer who’d built the case both looked impatient, but the priests just waited stoically. Tradition and law said that the accused was to have as much time as he needed to prepare for combat.

Slowly his nature asserted himself and he found himself less focused on the coming fight than the weapons themselves. The planes and angles that defined a sharp edge from a blunt one, and a blunt edge from a point, were fascinating. They had scuff marks and polish and the occasional gleam of long-dried energon in a crease or crack. Some of them had writing. Names, either of the weapon itself, the crafter, or a prominent wielder. Kill tallies, scratched into the surface… He didn’t realize it, but this task relaxed him. His plating loosed and he moved with confidence, which made his accusers nervous.

Finally he came to a weapon, a short sword, with the words “I am the Blade of Justice - Templar Silverblast” written on the blade and knew… The words, names, kill counts the other weapons claimed were not lies, but this was truth. This one was right. He ran his fingers over the silver blade a few times and closed his hand over the hilt, marveling at how well it fit. He chose the weapon and faced Valkyrie before the altar.

Of course, no pretty words, no matter how true, could impart skill where there was none. Pen fought clumsily, awkwardly, always scrambling away from the priest’s strikes. It was definitely pure luck that jammed the sword into Valkyrie’s leg through the knee joint, drawing a scream of pain from the novice-priest. After a tug, Pen abandoned the weapon and scrambled for the dropped spear, retreating as far away as he could from the now-enraged priest brandishing his new weapon like a talisman.

But Valkyrie was not following after him, ready to kill. Instead she stared at the wound and the sword lodged in it.

Her plating was dark. Black and red so dark it was nearly black, so the silver bleeding across her from the wound was very obvious. Not the dull grey of dying metal, but true, bright silver. She pulled the sword from her leg and the color halted there, but started flowing across her hand where she held the hilt. Someone made some noise of surprise and she looked around, and, seeing Pen almost cowering from her at the edge of the combat ring, she dropped the sword and left the ring without a word. Surrendering.

Pen was…stunned. He couldn’t believe he was still alive, much less that he’d won his legal case. He stood there, blinking until one of the senior priests retrieved the sword and brought it to him. 

“This is yours,” said Darkling, holding out the sword which had begun spreading its silver color across his deep green paint from where he grasped it.

He protested. He was a lawyer. He wasn’t allowed weapons or combat training. 

Darkling just smiled. “Well, when you want it, it’s here waiting for you.”

.

.

.

end

 


End file.
